Justification and Critique: Towards a Critical Theory of Politics

Justification and Critique: Towards a Critical Theory of Politics

Rainer Forst

Language: English

Pages: 240

ISBN: 0745652298

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub

Rainer Forst develops a critical theory capable of deciphering the deficits and potentials inherent in contemporary political reality. This calls for a perspective which is immanent to social and political practices and at the same time transcends them. Forst regards society as a whole as an ‘order of justification’ comprising complexes of different norms referring to institutions and corresponding practices of justification. The task of a ‘critique of relations of justification’, therefore, is to analyse such legitimations with regard to their validity and genesis and to explore the social and political asymmetries leading to inequalities in the ‘justification power’ which enables persons or groups to contest given justifications and to create new ones.

Starting from the concept of justification as a basic social practice, Forst develops a theory of political and social justice, human rights and democracy, as well as of power and of critique itself. In so doing, he engages in a critique of a number of contemporary approaches in political philosophy and critical theory. Finally, he also addresses the question of the utopian horizon of social criticism.

understood in a social and political but not a metaphysical sense – that is, assuming the form of arbitrary rule by individuals or by a part of the community (for example, a class) over others, or of the acceptance of social contingencies which lead to social subordination and domination and are rationalized as an unalterable fate, even though they are nothing of the sort. A metaphysical conception of arbitrariness in the context of social justice would go further and aim to eradicate or

attitude of those who are willing to engage in such arguments, who accept the criteria of reciprocity and generality, and who accept in a given case that their arguments do not suffice to be the basis of general law. Still, given Waldron’s justified doubts, it is important to add another reason for toleration connected with this: the toleration of those who see that a debate remains at a standstill and that therefore no side can show its claims and reasons to be superior. In such a case,

attitude of those who are willing to engage in such arguments, who accept the criteria of reciprocity and generality, and who accept in a given case that their arguments do not suffice to be the basis of general law. Still, given Waldron’s justified doubts, it is important to add another reason for toleration connected with this: the toleration of those who see that a debate remains at a standstill and that therefore no side can show its claims and reasons to be superior. In such a case,

see my “Tolerance as a virtue of justice.” Bayle himself, one needs to add, only saw this as a moral and civic virtue; politically, he stood in the tradition of the politiques arguing for a strong sovereign such as Henri IV. 37 This recursive, procedural aspect of the “terms of toleration,” so to speak, is also highlighted by O’Neill, “Practices of toleration,” and Bohman, “Reflexive toleration in a deliberative democracy.” 36 144 Justification, Recognition, and Critique 11 As I already

constitutional questions and, one could say, all of the “social” questions that touch on the survival of a politics that respects liberty, and thus that can be dealt with in a political manner (which includes more aspects than Arendt acknowledged). Her later works (especially the book on revolution) and statements reveal, in addition, that Arendt did not believe that social questions were unimportant; she just believed, astonishingly 17 See, by contrast, the account in Habermas, The Structural